The owner of a failing Stockton care home has taken the "heartbreaking" decision to close, leaving seven residents to find alternative accommodation.

Carol Lynn Trainor, owner of Acorn House care home on Norton Road, was warned by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) she needed to make immediate improvements to care quality, or face further action.

Both Stockton Council and the CQC say they had been working with Mrs Trainor to rectify the home’s failing standards. But now Mrs Trainor, 59, and husband Graham, 69, have taken the decision to close after 13 years.

She said: “It’s breaking my heart. It’s not what I wanted. I had a suspension put on me in October saying the home was unsafe and I couldn’t take in any more residents. Since then, not one of the families has taken their loved one out. They don’t want to go. While all this has been going on, none of my staff have left. They’ve been brilliant. I’d like to thank them for staying with us right to the end.”

The CQC found the home failing seven out of eight nationally set standards in February.

hat followed an inspection in October, when safety concerns meant the home was prevented from taking any more residents. Mrs Trainor says this put financial pressure on the home.

The CQC visit in February revealed some staff were employed without appropriate pre-employment checks, residents were at risk of being scalded and there were insufficient systems to assess residents’ risk of malnutrition or skin damage. A fire drill had also not been carried out for almost a year.

The couple say they dealt with all the issues identified immediately and said residents were never at risk of scalding.

Details of a subsequent inspection in August are yet to be published.

The couple were recently permitted to take on one additional resident every 28 days, but decided to close citing continued financial pressure and claiming the council “did not help” them.

Councillor Jim Beall, Stockton’s Cabinet member for adult services and health, said the council had been “working closely” with Mrs Trainor in making the improvements required by the CQC and was working “to ensure the transition to new accommodation was as comfortable as possible for the seven remaining residents.”

The CQC said they had “identified increasing concerns about Acorn House and its failure to comply with national standards of care.”